Episode 026: Bond of Dreams, Bonds of Love
“High school student Ao has been dreaming about his longtime neighbour Ryomei, a priest at the local Shinto Shrine. A little freaked out - and a lot excited - at the prospect of having a relationship with Ryomei, Ao gathers up his courage, confesses his feelings … and gets turned down flat.
Luckily, Ao’s not the kind to give up easily. Thanks to some creative persistence (and Ryomei’s weakening resolve), he finally gets a kiss.
But one single kiss won’t satisfy him for long!”
For this review I have only read the first three volumes of the manga, but there is apparently a fourth and final volume that concludes the series but I tapped out just before the end.
This week we are reviewing “Bond of Dreams, Bonds of Love”, a manga about a high schooler finally admitting his love for his neighbour who is also a shinto priest and his determination to win him over. It’s been a while since we reviewed a manga, so I thought it would be good to pick one I read several years ago to see how good it actually was.
You can either listen to the podcast above, or you can read below for a majority of the transcript of the podcast! Now as always, our discussion will begin with a brief summary of the manga followed by spoiler free thoughts and feelings. This will be followed by an in-depth discussion of some of the key plot points that occurred and we will then finish off with my overall rating of the manga and a heads up about what we are looking at next time. If you have not had a chance to read Bond of Dreams, Bonds of Love and don’t want to hear any spoilers, then please feel free to skip the detailed section and listen to it afterwards if you so wish.
The story itself is a fairly straightforward one with a boy who finds out he likes another boy, a close friend actually, and then spends his time trying to ‘win over’ that particular friend who considers themselves straight as far as anyone is concerned. In a lot of ways it probably covers a good portion of the queer manga out there, so I would say if you are a big manga fan then the plot will probably feel fairly familiar.
The visuals, which do make up a key part of any manga, are fairly good and it was great to see that all of the characters in the story were easily distinguishable as the creator had taken the time to properly flesh out their individual looks. I do appreciate when manga’s make an effort to ensure their characters don’t all look the same as it does get quite hard to easily follow from page to page otherwise, so big shout out for the extra effort on this one.
In terms of the representation, our main focus is between our two male leads, and so there isn’t a lot of diversity in this story, with the key representation being Ao’s friend who has been out as gay since childhood and then Ao and Ryomei themselves as they figure out their own sexuality. Since both boys have been with girls before this, and nothing is explicitly mentioned in how they view their own sexuality, we are just left to assume that this means they would count as bisexual representation for the story.
But we also have some unacceptable things being shared by some of the characters in the story as well. One of the big things is the homophobia from Ao’s own brother when they hear that he is interested in another guy and how he reacts seems to be a fear of people then possibly thinking he might also be gay since they are identical twins. It added some tension to the story and so it never felt like it was homophobia for the sake of it, and it did lend the story a bit of realism by including that hetero-normative fear.
In terms of the characters, I will say the main character Ao does get on my nerves with his air headed ways and his refusal to respect other people’s feelings at times. He is a very self-centred character so it was kind of hard to fully sympathise with him throughout the story considering his actions and rationale at times just felt off-putting to me. Thankfully other characters in the story were more to my taste and so it made it a bit easier to continue with the story having some characters I didn’t mind.
Final Feelings and Recommendation
Now for recommending this to people, I would say that if you are fan of friends falling for each other with a lot of humour involved, then this might be one you want to look over if you are running low on other choices. It wouldn’t be top of my list but it definitely has some humour at times and could be a comfort read for those who like the general story beats. Otherwise I would say it’s maybe not worth going out of the way to hunt this down as again, there is stronger media out there.
For giving this a rating, I would say it’s a three out of ten wet dreams about your close friend. It’s a fairly simple plot and although the art style is strong, the characters and some of their behaviours just don’t gel with me.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Now, just a reminder that at this point, I will be going into a more detailed analysis of the manga which means there will be spoilers! If you haven’t read Bond of Dreams, Bonds of Love yet and you don’t want anything spoiled, then this is your last chance to avoid the discussion. Or you can go ahead and close the page, go read the manga and then come back afterwards to finish reading.
Our story promptly introduces us to our main character, Ao, as he has one of his recurring dreams which is actually just replaying an old memory of his. It’s one where he was younger and visiting a shrine to pray for his grandmother to get well, and he runs into a priest who spots him doing the 100 visit prayer, apparently one that needs to be done unseen to come true. However the priest says that it is okay and then it starts to get a little steamy between the two of them. Now this obviously didn’t happen back then since Ao was just a kid, but it is the case that he has now just had a wet dream about one of his oldest friends.
Ao is getting lost in his daydreams at school, trying to work out what this dream means and if he does have feelings for his friend suddenly, and we actually see that another guy at his school is confessing his feelings for him. Unfortunately that guy assumes that Ao’s silence is a yes and starts to make an unwanted move on him, but thankfully Ao kicks him in the face to get him off. Rightfully earned that considering anything other than a yes should be seen as a no, and this guy has now learned the painful lesson of respecting other people’s boundaries and not assuming he is entitled to anything he wants.
There is a bit of a gag with Ao’s friend Masato, as anytime he is talking about Ryomei at school he seems to mishear him, or maybe willfully chooses to ignore certain parts of the conversation, and so is always assuming Ao is talking about a girl. It’s a little bit hit or miss for how funny it is for me, as sometimes it reads as a gag while other times it feels almost like a friend refusing to acknowledge his friend's authentic self, which reads as unacceptable for a friend to do in my opinion.
We later see that Ao also assists at the bar his grandmother runs at nights, which means that he also has Ryomei, the Shinto priest he is friends with and having sex dreams about, show up with his friend Shu at times, bringing him leftover snacks from the bakery. It is a nice moment to see Ao’s sweeter side as he helps out his family member and it does give us a chance to properly understand their friendship, seeing how caring Ryomei is towards Ao.
As the night progresses, the bar runs out of cigarettes and so Ao has to run out to buy more. Yet foolishly, he starts daydreaming as he is walking about and almost gets hit by a car. It's here where I am already tired of Ao’s trait of just getting lost in his own thoughts so much that he blunders into dangerous situations, it just feels quite silly he is this dim. Thankfully Ryomei was coming to find him and saves him from being hit, and so in response Ao just directly states he wants to do dirty things with him. Unsurprisingly Ryomei doesn’t really know how to respond and instead heads home trying to rationalise what is going on.
Yet Ao is nothing if not determined, in some ways a typical male that doesn’t take no for an answer, and finds Ryomei and is very honest and upfront about having had a wet dream about his friend and how he now wants to bang. I mean, I do appreciate direct communication but even I feel like that is something that needs a little bit of padding or build-up towards telling your friend of many years you want to fuck.
In some ways I can appreciate Ryomei’s knee-jerk reaction of WTF is going on, however I do disagree with his societal given homophobia of thinking sex between two guys couldn’t be good. He clearly doesn’t know where the prostate is! But that doesn’t stop our little pest Ao, who relentlessly goes on about how they should just try a kiss and see if either of them like it. Well surprise surprise, Ao obviously enjoys it and it startles Ryomei and so it ends with Ao being shown the door for the day.
Ao’s friend Shupei decides to try and knock some sense into Ao and how he has been acting lately. He asks if Ao would like to do it with him instead of Ryomei, but he quickly backpedals on this and we later find out that Ao has always been controlled by his dick since high school, what colour me surprised, and he thought that if he offered to fuck Ao then he would back off from pressuring Ryomei. But Shupei can’t just have sex with anyone so he can’t go through with it, to which Ao argues that they have been friends since they were young so he would never have sex with him anyway. Yet here he is completely missing the bloody point that this is the exact same position Ryomei is in! Seriously, what an himbo.
Ao ends up getting a fever and of course it would be Ryomei that ends up taking him home to ensure he is safe. He even starts to help change Ao’s clothes but in his fever state, Ao decides to start trying to seduce Ryomei and climbs on top of him. Now Ao doesn’t get any kind of consent before he is sticking his hands into Ryomei’s underwear, which is a big no from me even if he is fever mad. yet Ryomei then retaliates with the thinking that if this is happening, no way is he being on the ‘bottom’ and so he starts kissing back and working his way down Ao’s chest before he realises he has fallen asleep, where he then does the right thing by stopping, although that is due to having a bit of a panic about what he started doing.
Now as Ryomei struggles with figuring out how he feels about Ao, his friend Shu is not the most helpful, at least in a conventional sense. At points he is talking with Ao and encouraging him to borrow a maid or nurses outfit as maybe he needs to dress feminine to seduce Ryomei, and at other points he seems to deliberately antagonise Ryomei.
Ao and his friends go for a night out as a way to cheer him up after being coldly rejected once more by Ryomei. Now I have to say, I am a big advocate of being direct in your communication, but Ao takes it to a bloody ridiculous level, as he just outright asks one of the girls if he can touch her boobs. And they just bloody agree to let him regardless of how out of the blue or entitled that comes across as! Like seriously, he is a little sex pest this Ao, and he is only doing it to test out how he feels about Ryomei and if it’s a phase or not.
Now you would think there would be more communication on the whole situation at this point, but instead Ao decides to avoid Ryomei for 2 weeks and instead hangs out with Shupei at the dojo. Unsurprisingly, Ryomei is wondering WTF is happening and correctly calls out that it feels like he is being bullied into liking Ao, which is definitely my read on this whole narrative. And after being depressed for those 2 weeks, Ryomei finally shows up at Ao’s house to tell him how hard this has been and says Ao can feel what he feels but doesn’t have to avoid him. Jeezo, talk about Ao getting his way all the time!
But before things can progress between the two, Ao’s twin brother Aka barges into the room. And yes, if you know some Japanese you will notice that their mum has named them Blue and Red, how original! Anyway, since he was so rudely interrupted Ao kicks his brother out, refusing to give him the chance at this time to discuss with him what he came round to talk about.
Shupei finds Aka and it is here that we find out Ao may be moving away to live with their mum again as she is moving into a new house and wants both her boys living with her again. However Aka ruins the whole family vibe by being a complete dickhead and talking about how his brother can’t be gay and he doesn’t want someone with the same face as him being gay, nor can he apparently live with a gay in the house. Such prehistoric and ridiculous thoughts, especially against a family member.
The twins finally get a chance to talk and it’s clear that neither is super happy about the idea of living together again since it’s been a long time apart, but they both appreciate their mum is very excited and it would probably make her happy. Ao does point out however that grandma would be all alone then and he can’t do that to her. It is a sweet consideration he has for her, and since he has spent most of his life living with her it makes sense he wouldn’t want to just leave her on her own either. However she will soon knock this idea back by trying to encourage him to move as well.
While Shu and Ryomei are drinking, Shu gets Ryomei thinking and has him confirm that if he did consider getting down with Ao, he would definitely be the top. I suppose in this sense it’s typical of yaoi manga since he is the dark haired, more mature one, so nothing mould breaking about this thinking.
At one point Ryomei is asked by Ao’s grandmother to have a drink with her after he has brought Ao home one night. Here she starts to reminisce about how Ao was always so withdrawn when he first moved in with her as his parents got divorced, but how he really started to open up after bumping into Ryomei. It’s a really sweet moment that shows how positive Ryomei has been for Ao’s growth during their friendship, and it helps give us a better understanding for why Ao might like him rather than just the premise of “Oh I had a wet dream about you, let’s do it”.
The next day Ao is once again quite direct with Ryomei that he wants to go on an actual date, and as a bit of a shock, Ryomei agrees to go on a date with him. Clearly he is starting to think a little differently about his friend, as he even ends up having a dirty dream about him and Ao the night before the date.
When the boys do go on their date, Ryomei is playing it safe as he takes Ao to the aquarium, out for BBQ food, and then finishes the night off going to a baseball practice venue. Suffice to say that Ao doesn’t feel like it’s a real date since he doesn’t believe these are typically places you would go on a date, making him feel as if Ryomei is still just seeming him as his childish friend. I think that is pretty closed minded of Ao to assume this, since what might be one persons ideal place to go on a date won’t always be another persons, even if we know what Ryomei is doing since we get both sides of this story as the reader, but it is still not clever to just assume these things.
With all this on his mind, Ao decides that he will move into his mothers afterall, and later on he does admit to his friends he is actually taking this decision as a gamble to hopefully encourage Ryomei to see him in a different way if they have spent some time apart. It is a smart move since coming back to situations after some time away can give us different perspectives, but also not 100% sure I feel Ao is being fair to Ryomei with this slightly manipulative behaviour.
It’s during this panic about Ao moving away that he thinks back on how his adult life has actually been shaped by Ao and that maybe he does have a current of deeper feelings for his friend. Back when they first met, he lied about being a shinto priest but then went and got a job there to make sure it was true, and when he has been helping at the bakery, the cakes are the ones Ao always picks unknowingly since he is always thinking of what Ao would eat when he is baking. He really has been wrapped around this boy's finger for years!
As Ryomei is going home, in symmetry to the start of the series, we catch Ao doing the 100 prayer visit once more. It is here where we get a shocking change to what has previously been set up, with Ryomei asking if Ao can stay over and this time he is open to them “doing it”. Quite the turnaround from the guy in volume one who claimed two guys couldn’t have sex. And that is it, we are left on a cliffhanger for volume three of the manga and I have to admit that I had reached the limit of how much I could endure Ao and his antics, and so even with the idea that the next volume would have some more explicit scenes, I felt I had enough knowledge to tap out here.